“I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart (where?), down in my heart (where?), down in my heart. I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart (where?) down in my heart to stay.” We listen to the children sing this cute song and smile, and often we enjoy the motions and tune out without considering what the words really mean to us.

In the 1700’s, Isaac Watts penned the words to a song that is very popular at this time of the year, “Joy to the World.” It’s not unusual to hear the song sung or played in shopping malls, restaurants, school plays, and of course, church services. According to Watts’ testimony, the source of inspiration for the lyrics was the 98th Psalm.

At Christmastime, our church holds many special Christmas services—including “The Journey of Christmas” event with live drama and a gospel message.

The Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons can be a combination of great joy and, oddly, some melancholy. They mark the coming and going of not only the literal seasons of fall to winter, but they also mark the passing of seasons in our lives.

The Bible says, “But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another,” (Galatians 5:15). Sometimes I hear people say, “I just let so-and-so have it.”

In the previous blog, we noted that while it is easy to give lip service to the Great Commission as the mission of the local church, it is also easy to get distracted from it.

Let me begin by saying I am young in the pastorate, and some would quickly point out that I have no business attempting to share counsel about music in the church. I am somewhat of an enigma because I am soon to be fifty years old, but I have only been a pastor for less than seven years. So I am an older guy with very little experience in the pastorate! My goal is to be biblical in these thoughts!

he Great Commission of Christ is to share the gospel and make disciples. Sometimes I paraphrase it, “go, win, baptize, teach.”

On June 17, 2018, Harvest Baptist Temple of Medford, OR, celebrated forty-one years of ministry. It was also the day that the founding pastor, Dr. Bob Gass, entrusted the heritage and history of that ministry to me.

According to statistics from 2018, Americans owe 26 percent of their income to consumer debt with the average American spending 10 percent of his or her monthly income on non-mortgage debts. And although average income is increasing, American consumers are buying more and increasing their debt.